


All the Happiness You Need

by codenamecynic



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Birthday Cake, Birthday Sex, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: It's Cort's birthday, and Taliesin just wants to do something nice for him. Only he's terrible and so are birthday cakes.





	All the Happiness You Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onemooncircles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemooncircles/gifts), [bettydice (BettyKnight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/gifts), [Fionavar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionavar/gifts), [Dakoyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dakoyone/gifts).



> This whole tragic thing came about because our lovely DM, onemooncircles, once randomly shouted a prompt at me about two characters making a cake. Also it was her birthday and I am a ruiner *double finger guns* eyyo
> 
> If you're following [The Swordmaster's Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15688893/chapters/36454428), this story is set sometime around year 25.

“I need help.”

Marv looks up at him from over his cards. A plume of smoke rises from the pipe dangling precariously from thin, weatherbeaten lips and lifts his eyebrow along with it. 

“What did you do this time.”

“Okay first of all -  _ rude,  _ what do you mean  _ this time?  _ I am flawless and I do no wrong.”

“Uh huh.”

“Look more impressed why don't you. And I haven't done anything.” Taliesin clears his throat. “Yet.”

“Uh huh.”

“You shit, are you going to help me or not.”

“Is it a bad idea?”

“Probably.”

“I'm in.”

Marv meets him outside in the street, patting his pockets like he's lost something. Knowing him and his recent dedication to bad luck at the tables, it's probably something like all his gold.

“So, is it crime?”

“I love how that's the first thing you default to, your opinion of me is amazing. I haven't done crime in  _ weeks.” _

Marv snorts, laughs, and reaches out a hand to scruff the back of his neck, giving him a little shake that rattles his brain. “Cort's got you on a short leash, kid.”

“That's Tuesday. It's Subterfuge Wednesday, or didn't you get the memo.”

Marv raises his hands innocently. “I don't ask questions, I just provide alibis.”

“Liar, you  _ always  _ ask questions.”

“And you always have a story. What is it this time?”

“I need a favor.”

“Go on.”

“I need you to distract Cort for a day. Get him out of the house.”

Marv shoots him a sideways look. “I thought you two had an arrangement?”

“What?”

“I'd do a lot for you kid, but I'm not helping you cheat on your beefy man-friend.”

“Are you kidding me-  _ Marv.  _ I'm not  _ cheating  _ on  _ Cort,  _ what is wrong with you?!”

Marv pauses, shrugs. “So, crime?”

Taliesin just rolls his eyes.

*

After approximately fifty years of needless explaining due nothing more than to Marv’s obnoxious glee at putting him on the spot, he finally agrees to help and Taliesin has the house to himself for an entire day. 

Normally that's something to be avoided at all costs; the place isn't large but he hates rattling around in it alone. Still, it gives him the opportunity to drag out all of the little things he's been squirrelling away for the past week, retrieving them from his half dozen hiding places scattered throughout the cottage. He pops out for eggs, and again because he forgot butter, and by the time it's half past ten he's got everything lined up on the kitchen table like soldiers reporting for duty.

“Sugar. Flour. Eggs. Butter. Uh… pan, right, check. Salt… There you are. Right.” He takes a deep breath. “Right. You can do this, Taliesin. You are smart and you are brave and you can totally. Completely. Do this.”

One of the eggs rolls off the table and splatters all over the floor.

*

It’s… not going well.

Also, that might be an understatement.

It turns out, much to his chagrin, that  _ eating  _ cake somehow does not automatically make one good at  _ baking _ cake, and he’s not even three steps down Margaret’s dubiously written instructions before things start going sideways.

First of all, he has no idea how to separate eggs. Not only does it seem ridiculous (who even thought of this nonsense?) but he is  _ terrible  _ at it, and he manages to go through nearly a dozen before he manages to get the four (fucking  _ four _ ) egg whites the recipe calls for.

_ Exhausting _ .

And then he has to beat them until stiff, which he finds hilarious for about two minutes - until it starts to get tedious and painful because apparently whatever muscle this whipping motion requires, ironically enough, is not one that gets much use in his arm.

By the time he’s managed that, all of the butter is melted in its bowl and he has to retrieve the soggy waxed paper wrapping from the bottom before it disintegrates. And he’s fairly certain he’s not supposed to have the butter in liquid form in the first place, but it’s ten thousand degrees in the house because of the oven that he has literally only ever used to toast bread in while hungover, and not even opening all the windows and the doors does any good at all. He’s sweating through his shirt and he’s got a handkerchief tied around his head like he’s the maid and honestly it’s still a bit like trying to fan himself with a piece of paper while standing on the actual fucking sun.

Fuckity fuck.

And that’s just the wet ingredients. “How many fucking bowls does one cake need Margaret?” he complains, because really they just have the one big one and some random mismatched small ones and he will literally have to start putting things in mugs if this continues. Deciding that it’s worth the risk to deviate (ahem,  _ improvise _ ), he measures the dry ingredients directly into the wet ingredients, because they’re all going into the same pan eventually anyway.

That… looks fine, actually.  _ Excellent, _ he is a  _ genius _ . He manages to make something that looks more or less like proper batter, and even remembers to fold (gently) the egg white disaster from earlier into it. Only, well, they’ve gone a bit liquid again and maybe that’s not quite right, but it’s too late now, he’s come too far, and in they go with the rest.

He dumps the mixture into the pan, jams the pan in the oven, and lies down on the floor.

*

He wakes up to the smell of something burning.

There are number of problems with that.

Number one, he wakes up. Which means that he’s fallen asleep. On the floor. Covered in eggs and flour. Not ideal.

Number two,  _ something is burning _ and it really takes him entirely too long to realize that it must be the fucking cake. The idea strikes home and he jerks himself up off the floor all in a rush, nearly falling and braining himself on the back of a chair when he slips in a patch of what is probably butter but honestly at this point could be anything. He catches himself on the edge of the table and upsets the bag of flour, which not only upends all over him but also explodes in a plume like a geyser, scattering like a light dusting of.. well,  _ dust _ , all over the kitchen.

And then he burns himself on the oven door, because of course he does, forgetting the padded cloth he has literally  _ right there _ to prevent this very thing, and the cake burns a good two to three minutes longer than it has to because he needs to run through a litany of every curse word he knows.

And it is burnt. In fact it’s blackened, a hard crust forming over the top of the sadly shapen loaf. And it does look a bit more like bread than he thought it would, the center of the cake rising into a weird peaky dome that collapses as soon as he takes the pan out of the oven. That’s fine, maybe that’s normal. Surely that’s normal. He can totally salvage this.

Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

As burnt as it is on the outside, the interior jiggles ominously when he attempts to trim off the detritus of his accidental nap. He’s also apparently skipped entirely over step one, which was to grease the fucking pan with the butter he accidentally liquified, and now it’s cemented in there forever, and no amount of pleading or cussing or bribery will do any good whatsoever.

And he’s supposed to make an icing after this? How do people  _ do  _ this? Good fucking gods, it’s been hours _. Days _ . He’s been standing in this hellfire kitchen for an eternity, and the fact that he’s resorted to banging the pan against the edge of the table in hopes that it will loosen the cake enough for it to come out does not speak well of his time spent.

He’s making such a racket that he doesn’t even notice when the door creaks open wide, a sudden breeze stirring up snowdrifts of flour and flinging them back up into the air. He coughs, fans a hand in front of his face, and then looks up in dread. Both Cort and Marv are standing in the doorway. Staring at him.

The cake chooses that exact moment to slide free, falling with a wet glop onto the table in a jagged lump, raw center oozing like a cracked egg.

“Welp,” Marv says unhelpfully and claps Cort on the shoulder, wisely making himself scarce.

The silence is  _ horrifying.  _ Taliesin clears his throat. “I have a good explanation for this.”

“I am rather looking forward to hearing it.”

Cort doesn’t move and Taliesin doesn’t either, staring at each other over a ruined table and a melting volcano of cake.

“Would you believe me if I just said I had a stroke?”

Cort almost,  _ almost _ smiles, he could swear he sees it - but maybe it’s just more of his wishful thinking. “I think you’ll have to do a little better than that this time.”

“Right. I… love you?”

One of Cort’s dark brows lifts, his head tilting to the side as he picks his way into the room, stepping lightly over a discarded wooden spoon glued stickily to the floor with batter. Taliesin has no idea how it got there.

“Alright.”

_ Alright?  _ Well.

Shit.

“I wanted to surprise you for your birthday by making you a cake only apparently I bake worse than I cook and it honestly all got a bit out of hand,” he finally says, out in a rush on one breath, and when Cort doesn’t respond he deflates. “Right, I’m- an idiot. I’ll just- I’ll clean it up, go- stand over there.”

Gods, this is  _ miserable _ , he’s a mess, the kitchen is wrecked, and-

“Taliesin?”

“...yeah?”

“You’re quite mad, you know that.”

“So I’ve been told.” His voice sounds petulant and childish and it really doesn’t have any right to, especially since all of this is completely  _ his _ doing. All the same, he feels his shoulders round into a defensive hunch, eyes down and on the table as he tries to figure out where to start. There are broken eggshells underfoot, butter dripping from the edge of the table, and when he gives up and gathers his seeping wound of a cake up in both hands to slop it back into the charcoal-encrusted pan, it’s one of the saddest, lowest moments he thinks he’s ever had in his whole life.

And there he goes.  _ Dramatic.  _ He really can’t do anything right.

He wearily smears his forearm over his sticky forehead, and slams right into Cort when he turns around. Cort catches him by the hips to keep him from tipping over, draws him up against his body, but Taliesin leans away, holding his cake-battered hands between them. “Let me go, I should-”

“Taliesin.  _ Taliesin,”  _ Cort insists when he doesn’t look up, lifting a hand to take his chin.

_ “What?” _

“Look at me.”

He is  _ definitely  _ sulking. “Why.”

“Because I can’t kiss you otherwise.”

He does look at Cort then, but it’s more like a glare. “You don’t have to humor me.”

“I’m not. This is-”

“A fucking mess.”

Cort’s eyebrows lift. “And still the nicest thing anyone has ever done for one of my birthdays.” He smiles, a real smile this time, a gentle jest around the edges. “Tried to do, anyway.”

Taliesin frowns. “Well. You’re worth it. You deserve to have someone bring you cake and flowers and naked breakfast in bed- gods, why didn’t I just do  _ that? _ I am such an idiot.”

Cort is laughing now, his arms reaching to gather Taliesin into them, pulling him against his broad chest regardless of the mess still on his hands. He leans in to press kisses across his cheek and temple, smiling against his skin. “You have flour _all_ _over_ you.”

“You know me, go hard or go home. Guess I maybe should have just gone home on this one.”

“You and your wild schemes.”

“Look, the next one is gonna pan out. You’ll see.” Cort’s hands are sneaking up the back of his shirt, smiling mouth against the pulse at his throat. “You should, ah- you should let me clean this up.”

“Later. I want to eat my cake.”

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ He pries his hands loose from where they’re pinned between their bodies, slides his arms around Cort’s neck. “It’s a million degrees in here.”

“All the more reason to let me unwrap my present.”

That is  _ so _ \- he can’t even process it, bursting out laughing with head thrown back as Cort grins and nibbles his way along his jaw. “All the windows are open.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to be quiet.”

Well holy shit. That’s enough to have him instantly hard, pressed up against Cort’s hip. It attracts his attention immediately, pushing Taliesin back against the flour-strewn table as his hand slides downward to close possessively over his cock.

“Gods,” Taliesin breathes, already overly eager. “Are you sure you-”

“Shh. Just let me.”

It shouldn't be so easy to do just that. Cort maneuvers him back and back as his mouth works its way lower and lower, and by the time he's pushing Taliesin up onto the tabletop he's got him half out of his shirt.

“You're going to get batter all over my clothes,” he distractedly complains, eyes closing as Cort's mouth moves, a quiet groan muffled behind pressed lips when he sucks a mark beneath his collarbone.

“I think that ship has rather sailed,” Cort laughs, and bites down. It makes him jump, blood surging to his already aching cock at the sting.

“All over  _ your  _ clothes?” he suggests, the words coming out as a distracted question.

“Since when are you afraid of a little mess?”

He laughs, opens his eyes. “Oh, is that how it is?”

Cort is looking up at him, eyes alight, playful and- happy. As if he can ever say  _ no  _ to Cort happy.

“Fine,” he concedes and slips his sticky fingers into Cort's hair, making fists in its smooth dark length as Cort rumbles another muted chuckle against his hip, fingers on his belt.

Sometimes it's slow; today it's not. He wastes no time in getting Taliesin out of his pants, breeches open barely enough to let his cock free before it's in Cort's mouth.

_ “Fuck,”  _ he says, too loud, and then arcs his head back, biting down on his tongue. The back door is standing wide open; he can see the neighbor’s hung laundry swaying in the breeze. “Maybe we should just close-” he can’t even finish the thought, helplessly shuddering as Coet swallows him down, past the back of his throat. “Holy fucking  _ fuck.” _

Well there’s that idea gone. Honestly he’s having a difficult time focusing on any actual thoughts at all, fingers gripping into Cort’s hair like he’s being dangled off a cliff. He’s shaking, actually shaking, knees weak and stomach taut, letting the table take his weight. Cort pins his hips, works his mouth up and down his shaft until all Taliesin can do is quietly chant his name and try to claw his way back from the rapidly approaching edge.

“Sweetheart, if you don’t stop I’m going to-” The rest of his warning emerges in a blur of words, all folded in together as Cort only works at him harder until he feels like a string going taut, pulled to its limit, stretched to a breaking point. He tries so hard to be quiet he forgets to breathe, tiny dark spots blossoming around the edges of his vision like drops of ink falling into water, and when he comes it’s with a smothered cry that still sounds so loud in his own head that he feels like he’s screamed it in the middle of the street.

They both come up for air, gasping in the heat of the kitchen, Cort reaching to steady him as he sways. He stands, tall body unfolding to take Taliesin’s face in his hands, the white dusty shadow of flour on both knees of his dark trousers.

“You did  _ not _ have to do that,” Taliesin admonishes, or tries to, flushed and shaky. None of his limbs seem to want to cooperate with him, ending up half limp and pliant in Cort’s arms. “It’s  _ your _ birthday.”

Cort laughs against his ear, nuzzling into the sensitive spot beneath it. “Cute that you think I’m done with you.”

Taliesin shivers as he’s meant to, and tilts his head to kiss Cort’s lips. “Think? Me? Never.”

Cort smiles, soft and fond, and it’s almost enough to distract him from the heavy press of a hard cock against the inside of his thigh. Almost.

“Do you want me to-?”

“Come to bed.”

“Our poor sheets.”

“I really don’t think they need your pity.” Cort nips his lower lip, straight white teeth sinking in. “Is it my birthday or not?”

Taliesin smirks, fingers on his mouth where the skin still stings. “Sir yes sir.”

“Then march, Ferryman.”

Not that they make it all the way to the bedroom. The cottage is small, the distance minimal, but he’s still two steps from the door when Cort has him up against the wall like he can’t wait. He’s still wearing entirely too many clothes, but he pins Taliesin’s hands behind his back when he reaches, trapping them in a tangle of cloth as he tugs his open shirt from his shoulders.

“No touching?” he asks, voice low and soft, and Cort shakes his head.

“I just want to look at you.”

He swallows hard at that, planting his feet and bracing his shoulders against the wall as Cort holds him fast, one hand firm on the twist of cloth around his wrists, the other lifting to rest flat against the top of his chest. Slow, deliberate contact, the light drag of rough fingertips over flushed skin, up the line of his throat and then back down again. Lower and lower but slow, just an inch at a time; Cort’s expression is rapt, drinking him in, and he can’t look away.

It’s silly, maybe. They know each other’s bodies like they know their own, it’s been years, but every time Cort looks at him like that it’s like he’s twenty years old again, hoping against hope for something he’s too afraid to put a name to, ready to give him anything and everything to make it real.

Cort’s thumb slides over his nipple, scoring it lightly with his nail, and Taliesin jumps, refocuses. He’s just come but the sensation still travels straight to his cock, rousing its interest. He smothers a groan in the back of his throat, his head smacking back against the wall when Cort dips his head, tongue tracing the path of his finger.

“Have I ever told you how good you taste?” he murmurs and Taliesin can’t even respond, his toes flexing in his boots as Cort’s mouth closes around his nipple, pulling at the hard peak with tongue and teeth. His fingers take the other, clamping down, the pain and pleasure in heady, befuddling contrast that has him lurching forward with nowhere to go.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he demands breathily, struggling to keep himself from wriggling like a worm on a hook, all too aware of the noise from the street just beyond their window.

Cort laughs, works his mouth along the top of Taliesin’s hip, cresting downward again toward the open front of his breeches. His skin feels overly sensitive, burning everywhere Cort's  mouth touches, and he either needs more, much more, or nothing.

“Mercy.”

“Do you really want me to stop?”

Taliesin groans.  _ “Fuck.  _ No.”

Teeth against his abdomen, scraping along the vee of muscle at his hips. “Are you sure?”

_ This motherfucker-  _ He laughs, the sound helpless and shaky. “Why are you so  _ mean?” _

“It comes with age.”

“I’ll make your age come.” Crap, that doesn’t even make sense. Cort’s mouth is moving just above the base of his cock and he’s excited all over again. He flexes his wrists and whines.  _ “Cort.” _

“Shh, Taliesin, the windows are open.”

Fuck his fucking life. He submits, ungraciously, to a very thorough exploration of the flesh all along the low-slung waistband of his pants, rock hard and aching. He’s come once and it may be a long fucking time before Cort is ready to let him come again, and really he should have seen that- well. Seen that coming.

“Take off your boots,” Cort orders, mouthing the head of his cock through the fabric of his pants, and Taliesin does the best he can to toe them off without kneeing him in the chest. He is, however, also quietly berating him the whole time for his excessive cruelty, which only seems to amuse, Cort paying him only enough mind to laugh now and again, the sound pressed against the length of him.

Eventually, after seven hundred and forty years, Cort sits back on his heels and loosens his grip on the shirt around Taliesin’s wrists. Taliesin sighs and flops back against the wall like an exhausted fish on the end of a line suddenly gone slack, and narrows his eyes.

Cort smiles beatifically. “Well? Bed. Now.”

He does not have to be told twice.

It ends up a tangled race, the two of them shoving past each other in the door, and Taliesin sprawls out in their unmade covers on his face when he darts beneath Cort’s barring arm and ends up shoved from behind for his trouble. He laughs, starts to get up, when he’s yanked half down the length of the bed by his ankles - or rather by the cuffs of his pants, the garment summarily pulled off of him and tossed to one side. A small cloud of flour rises in a puff when they land.

“In a hurry?”

Cort leans down over him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, his hip, the small of his back. “Not at all.” He slaps Taliesin’s ass, the unexpectedly sharp sound more startling than the sting. “Turn over. I want to see you.”

He does as he’s bidden, rolling over to prop himself up on his elbows, lounging in a pose both provocative and plainly leering, his mouth curving wide into a facsimile of the suggestive grin he uses on other people. It fades when Cort shakes his head, eyes unexpectedly soft, making him sit up and reach out. “Come here. Please.”

Cort does, the mattress dipping beneath his weight, sitting back on his heels as he straddles Taliesin’s thighs. He’s still fully clothed but at least he’s taken his shoes off; washing the cake out of these sheets will be trial enough. Cort’s hair is loose and faintly wild with their wrestling about, sticky in parts with drying cake batter from Taliesin’s fingers, and he winds his hands into it again, smoothing it affectionately.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

“You say it often enough.”

“Yes, but you  _ know _ it. I hope.”

The look Cort gives him is long and deep, ocean eyes searching his face for gods know what, but eventually his mouth softens into a slow smile and he lifts a hand to Taliesin’s cheek. “I know.” It’s lovely for approximately thirty seconds, before he ruins it by swiping at something drying to a crust on Taliesin’s jawline with the pad of his thumb. “You’re still  _ quite _ mad though.”

Taliesin rolls his eyes, bats his hand away. “Are you going to fuck me or bathe me?”

“Both, probably.”

“Probably?”

“You have no patience whatsoever.”

Well he’s not wrong there. Cort looks entirely too smug, it can’t be borne, and he clearly isn’t expecting it when Taliesin hooks a leg through his and flips him neatly over onto his back. “Who has patience for something this good?”

Cort blinks up at him and slowly raises an eyebrow, deigning to look faintly impressed. “That was slick.”

“All in the hips,” he grins, and rolls his to make his point, feeling the press of a hard cock against him through the warm fabric of Cort’s clothes. Cort makes a quiet humming noise in the back of his throat, eyes falling shut momentarily at the sensation, opening again hazy and half-lidded to reach for Taliesin and pull him down into a kiss.

Taliesin permits it - for a moment, braceletting his fingers around Cort’s wrists and pulling them up in front of him as he sits up. “You said you wanted to look, didn’t you?” Cort doesn’t argue, watching him curiously, following their joined hands as Taliesin guides them up above his head, curling Cort’s strong fingers around the slats in the headboard. “Look all you want. Just don’t touch.”

“For how long?”

“Until I say. Or until you ask nicely.”

“May I touch you?”

“Gods, who has no patience now.”

“Can’t help it. I always want to touch you.” And he has the gall to look so sweet and sincere when he says it, those blue eyes focused like Taliesin is the only thing he can see.

That’s fucking cheating. Taliesin hauls himself up to sit upright, hands sliding down the length of Cort’s arms to prop themselves against his chest, delicate as cat’s paws toying with prey. He waits a moment to see if Cort will stay, and he does - for now - his eyes on Taliesin’s face. They move almost despite themselves, following the line of his throat, his shoulders, down his arms to his hands as they deftly open his shirt, pulling the fabric to either side to bare Cort’s chest. It swells with a deeply drawn breath, arms tensing as he resettles his grip on the bed, already fighting to stay in position.

It’s a heady feeling, being in control. It’s not that he never is, just that it usually ends up the other way around like it’s somehow the natural order of things, and he’s curious to see how far he can push before Cort inevitably pushes back.

He might as well use all his best assets, really get his money’s worth. He leans down to press his mouth to the inside of Cort’s elbow where he knows he’s faintly ticklish, working his way up his arm and across his chest. “You are so lovely,” he says between kisses, low and quiet, and is immediately rewarded with an added thrum of tension beneath him. He slides the point of his tongue along the smooth-shaven line of Cort’s jaw, biting down at its hinge sharply enough to make Cort jump. “I could just eat you.”

“As long as you don’t try to bake me first.” Rude, but then the words come out tight and breathy enough that it makes him smirk, leaving a little trail of bitemarks down the side of Cort’s body as he moves back, lower, to kneel between his legs.

He’s rock hard against the front of his pants but he hasn’t complained, patient and disciplined as ever (in some things at least), though his hips twitch when Taliesin ghosts a hand over the rise in the fabric, feeling the heat of Cort’s skin radiating from beneath. He works his belt free but that’s as far as he goes, leaning down to press his mouth against the underside of his shaft. Cort watches him with interest, neck craning up off the bed, and Taliesin holds his gaze, lips parting as he drags his tongue in a long swipe, licking through the cloth.

“You know, that would be more effective if-  _ shit!” _ he curses, jerking at the sharp sensation of teeth against the head of his cock. 

Taliesin presses his hips back down to the bed, lapping softly over the spot with his tongue. “Good?”

“I- yeah.” He takes a deep breath, the exhale shaky. “Yeah.”

With an endorsement like that, he can’t help but do it again. And again. And again, the heavy fabric of Cort’s trousers dulling the sting, growing damp under his tongue, until Cort’s hips start to work of their own accord, little muted movements like somehow Taliesin won’t notice. Only then does he reach to free him, loosening the laces and tugging the waistband down. He won’t really use his teeth now but he threatens it, gripping the head of Cort’s cock lightly between them, Cort’s breath catching, hands tightening their hold on the headboard. Again another quiet groan, bitten back as Taliesin takes him fully into his mouth, the weight of him heavy across his tongue.

He’ll never ever get tired of this, not even when his jaw aches and his neck starts to hurt. It’s just too good, the way he tastes, the soft skin over the pulsing muscle beneath like a direct echo of Cort’s heartbeat, and the slide of hands in his hair when-

He pulls off. “Hands, Raghnall.”

Cort, stubborn as a rock, takes his time removing them. “Sorry, sorry.”

Taliesin glares, though it’s almost impossible to hold onto it when he just wants to kiss the naughty schoolboy expression off Cort’s face, and then maybe smother him with a pillow. “Keep it together.”

Cort raises his hands in mock innocence and puts them back on the headboard, and Taliesin takes his revenge. He has Cort straining and gasping in minutes, clenched tight through his thighs and stomach like he’s struggling not to thrust himself up into Taliesin’s mouth.

“Taliesin.  _ Taliesin.” _

“What, love?”

“Let me see you.” There is a pleading note to Cort’s voice that he almost never hears, and inexplicably it strikes right at his heart. He maneuvers himself up, straddling Cort’s hips again, and Cort almost,  _ almost, _ reaches for him before he drops his hands, palms flattening out against the bedsheets, fingers digging in to clutch the fabric.

“Better?” he asks softly and Cort nods. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, the joking and banter faded into the background in favor of something deep and intense that Taliesin can’t quite name, sentimental and possessive and lustful too, but also something more. It’s a bit like staring into the night sky for so long the earth starts to drop away beneath his feet and he has to look away, turning his gaze back to something tangible and raw.

“Tell me what you want to see.”

Cort’s cock twitches against the flat of his belly at the command, his tongue darting out to moisten his lower lip. Taliesin wants to bite it, and everything else.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Taliesin arches a brow, reaching up to slide his fingers through his own hair, the movement intentionally slow and languorous, half a pose. “Like this?”

“Lower,” Cort orders, his eyes on Taliesin’s fingers as they move gamely downward, tracing the line of his throat as he lets his head fall back. Across his chest and over the hard peaks of tender nipples that still carry the earlier ache. Slowly down the line of dark hair that trails the plane of his stomach. “Lower.”

They both sigh when his hand closes around his cock, Cort’s jaw working like he’s biting down on the inside of his cheek. His skin is pink from chest to cheekbone and Taliesin  _ has  _ to touch him, curling the fingers of his free hand lightly around the base of his throat, skin hot under his palm.

“I love you so much. Look at what you do to me.”

“I can hardly complain,” Cort smiles, nipping at Taliesin’s fingers when they find their way to his mouth, though his attention snaps back and zeroes in immediately when Taliesin grabs him by the chin, digging fingers into the bone. Not too hard, just- he  _ wants;  _ even totally in control he’s still so bound up in.

He lets him go, reaching instead for the bottle of oil on their bedside table, sitting back to slick himself with a sigh. Cort vibrates beneath him when he does, a rumble in his chest too low for him to hear, but it curls warm around his heart. It’s so stupidly sentimental he can hardly stand it; it seems ridiculous to be waxing poetic in his head with his hand around his cock, but he supposes there are worse things than to be in love.

“You know I think about you.”

Cort’s eyes flick upward to his face in question, and then back down again, attention divided. The sound of wet, slick flesh in his fist is softly obscene and he revels in it, tilting his hips brazenly forward.

“I think about you when I’m alone. When you’re-  _ ah, _ when you’re busy; when I want you. I think about you and I lie on this bed and I smell your scent on our sheets and I touch myself. Just like this.”

“No you don’t,” Cort says, but the words come out like a plea for more, and Taliesin is only too willing to oblige.

“Yes I do. I think about the way your body moves, about how it feels to have you on top of me, inside me. I think about how fucking  _ good  _ it is when you’re on your knees for me, your mouth around my cock. I think about coming for you, and making you come, stroking you just like this until you can’t hold back. The way you shake, just a little, when you start to come apart, the way you say my name. The way I’m yours and you’re mine, and how fucking lucky I am to have this, to be with you. Fuck yes I think about you.” Taliesin smiles, small and shy, suddenly honest and awkward with it. “I think about you all the time.”

Cort is watching him silently, head canted faintly to one side on his pillow, and suddenly it feels like it’s not a game, like maybe he’s shown too many of his cards, has opened himself up to- what? Judgement, maybe, but here he is, tipping out the contents of his heart with his hand around his cock. Could there be anything more ridiculous? Maybe he deserves to be judged.

As if he can read his mind, Cort lets go of the headboard and carefully sits up. He reaches out to take Taliesin’s face in his hands, and it's so gentle and careful that it makes him want to cry. He won’t, of course, because if there’s anything worse than spilling all his secrets with cock in hand it’s masturbatory weeping, but he still can’t quite meet Cort’s eyes. 

“Stop it. I can’t think when you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve never seen the sea before.” It’s out of his mouth before he can really register how cheesy and awful it sounds. “At least- that’s how you looked, your first time out on the ship. When we finally lost sight of the shore.”

“It was powerful. Beautiful. Scary.”

“So I scare you?”

Cort laughs. “All the time.” Taliesin has well and truly lost the upper hand in this whole affair, resettled across Cort’s lap when his hands come down to take his hips. “You make things terribly interesting.”

“Well that’s one thing to say for me.”

He doesn’t get to say much else, Cort pulling him in for a kiss that starts so sweet and turns into another beast entirely, the fingers framing his face sliding back to grip at his hair, his own folded arms trapped between their bodies when Cort draws him in, warm and secure.

He’s held that way for what seems like ages, Cort’s mouth on his throat, his shoulders, the top of his chest, and he buries his face in dark hair that smells, faintly and hilariously, of cake batter.

“I love you.”

“You’d better.”

That makes Taliesin laugh, the sound bubbling up all on its own. “Rude. And you, so bad at following directions.”

“Well, it is my birthday.”

“And you’re spoiled already, I’ve created a monst-  _ hey!” _ The room rotates unexpectedly, and the sudden impact of his back against the mattress is startling, leaving him to blink up at Cort as he settles himself between his thighs. “I see how it is.”

“As if this isn’t exactly what you intended.”

“Well I had thought there would be more suffering and less backtalk, but I suppose this works too.”

Cort just shakes his head and leans down to kiss him so hard Taliesin suspects he’s being shushed. And they are, in theory, supposed to be being quiet, though he thinks most of that’s (figuratively and literally) gone out the window. Still, he’s not one to waste the moment, especially not with the press of Cort’s chest against his, and the hot, heavy promise of a hard cock against his thigh.

He gropes for the oil to slick his fingers and reaches between their bodies to take both of them in hand, dragging a roughened sigh from Cort who raises himself up onto his forearms and lets him have his way. It makes all the muscles in his arms and shoulders stand out, hints of tension in his neck and the firm set of his jaw. He curses quietly when Taliesin starts to work his hips upward, their hot, slick flesh sliding together in his grip; a tremor runs through him that Taliesin can feel like a physical caress, blue eyes on him with the weight of pinning hands, holding him in place.

Cort holds out for as long as he can, nowhere near as adept at withstanding this kind of torture as Taliesin has taught himself to be, wracked by a violent shudder before he gives in and thrusts forward once, and again. That’s all he allows himself though, sliding free, hands rough and determined as he pulls Taliesin to him by the hips to press their bodies together. So close, just there.

“Did you mean what you said? That you think of me?”

Taliesin blinks, surprised. “Of course.”

He feels Cort shudder again, like an aftershock, something unseen moving where it's buried deep in the earth, and then he’s pressing into him, and the sudden ruthless fullness robs him of the breath to say anything else, his back arching hard enough to come up off the bed. Not that he goes anywhere - not that Cort lets him - pressing him down into the mattress again with the weight of half his body, mouth harsh and demanding on his.

He reaches his hands up to wind both fists into Cort’s hair, clutching into the dark, smooth locks as Cort’s hips start to move. It’s an aggressive pace, long strokes ending with the staccato rap of hipbones and then beginning all over again. It’s hard enough to push them up the bed, and Cort braces one arm against the frame to keep Taliesin’s head from slamming into it, the other hooking beneath one of his thighs to open him up, drawing his knee to his chest.

His hands move directionless, clutching Cort's shoulders, his arms, fingers digging into the solid muscle there. He's too tangled up to do any more than that and just holds on for dear life, toes curling and teeth buried in his lower lip.

It’s not enough; the harder he tries to be quiet the more he can hear that he’s not, and it probably doesn’t matter at all with their headboard basically bouncing off the wall, but Cort still presses a hand over his mouth anyway. Taliesin laughs into his palm, and winks when Cort narrows his eyes.

“You’re impossible.”

His eyebrows lift in agreement, too entertained by how easy it is to wind Cort up sometimes to be able to resist.

Grudgingly Cort removes his hand and kisses him instead, and suddenly it’s as soft and languid and slow as it was rough and frantic a moment before. He’s still smiling against Cort’s mouth and Cort is smiling back at him, if a bit ruefully, and they end up watching each other as their bodies move, lingering on the slick shine of sweat on chests and shoulders, parted lips, the bunch and wind of muscle beneath flushed skin and the quiet sounds of effort, hushed in the warm and humid air between them.

It’s intimate, being observed so closely. It makes him feel vulnerable, almost uncomfortably so, but when he starts to tense and strain, to move beneath him quicker and faster and harder, Cort leans in to kiss his lips, a hand curled around the nape of his neck to hold him in place. “Don’t look away. I want to watch you come for me.”

_ Fuck. _ It’s not going to take much, tension coiling down his back, pressure gathering at the base of his spine. His body struggles against itself like he’s tied down, pinned by a brilliant gaze like water so clear he can see down for miles.

“Come for me,” Cort murmurs again, barely a command, but he does - spectacularly so, harder than their pace would justify, holding in movement and sound and breath until he thinks he really will black out this time, spilling hot and slick between their bodies. Cort never stops moving, driving into him with those long, steady strokes, rhythmic as oars in the water, speeding in tempo like war drums when he nears his own release. Breathless, weak and shaky, Taliesin manages to wrap his legs around Cort’s hips, clinging tight when he follows him over the edge.

“Happy birthday,” he says as Cort collapses on top of him with a small ragged sound, and can’t help but laugh at his muffled groan.

*

They stay like that for ages, sprawled out in the bed, sticky with sweat, spend and half-baked cake. Some of the oppressive heat in the house has finally dispersed and they lie side by side, fingers loosely intertwined. Cort’s eyes are closed, the tension in his brow smoothed to nothing, and Taliesin can’t help but look at him. He seems so much younger than his twenty seven years- twenty eight now, technically, he supposes. Six years since they first-

He stops that thought short, happy to be distracted when Cort finally shifts, limbs slow and languorous as though he’s fallen asleep. He lifts both arms above his head in a languid stretch, graceful as a cat, beautiful and heartbreaking, and then turns those lethal blue eyes on Taliesin, catching him staring.

His brows start to pull together, never a great fan of being observed unawares, but then they just don’t, relaxing when his mouth curves upward into one of those slow smiles that ruins Taliesin every time.

“I don’t usually care much about my birthdays, but I do think has been one of the better ones.”

“Then why do I feel like I’m the one receiving all the gifts?” Taliesin smiles lazily at him in return, turning his head into the stroke of a calloused thumb across his cheek. “It’s because I’m so pretty, isn’t it.”

“And modest.”

“That’s me.” He starts to get up, to clean up, and Cort pulls him back down, chest to chest. They’re sticky and sweaty but he seems not to mind, and Taliesin slowly unwinds across his body, propping his chin on his hands on Cort’s chest. “I know it’s a bit of a mess, but-”

“No. It’s perfect.”

He can’t help but laugh self-consciously at the naked sincerity in Cort’s voice, his gaze sliding away. “Well I’m glad you think so, because this is the best I’ve got and you’re stuck with it.”

Cort smiles, tips his chin to bring his eyes back into view. “Good.”

He looks at Cort and very blurry Cort looks back at him, his image wavering with the way tears suddenly well up in his eyes.

“You just wanted to make me cry, you bastard. You’re not supposed to cry on birthdays, they’re supposed to be all fucking happy and shit.”

Cort laughs, but not uncharitably, and lifts both hands to brush the pads of his thumbs lightly beneath Taliesin’s eyes. “I’ve got you, don’t I? That’s all the happiness I need.”


End file.
